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"One of the attorneys of record in the case, Ben Edelman, said the plaintiffs aren't ready to divulge the source of their information on the conspiracy allegations, adding that the information would come to light at trial if Yahoo decided not to settle the case."

I never really belived that many people clicked on ads on 'misspelled' domains.
Kind of goes against the (you need good content) theory.

From that link:

Jackson said he has bought 6,600 domains and uses several different ad services to earn revenue on them. "I know quite a few guys making over a million dollars a year from advertising on their domains," he said. "It's like a 24-hour money-printing machine."

If some guys are making over a million dollars a year from advertising on their domains, why are some of us wasting our time with unique content in our datafeeds pages? Is it so we don't look thin to some SE' only?

The major networks running SEM campaigns are in Kahoots with all the fraudulent forced click PPCSE cheats and the BHO search bar wanks. Hope this goes to trial and some AM's and network cookie washers get OUTED.

Webmaster's... Mike and Charlie

"What have you done today to put real value into a referral click...from a shoppers viewpoint!"

Collaborating with spyware and adware is just too much, but Yahoo has been silent on this matter. They will do well to come out with details to clear up the air, lest their reputation takes a hit irreparably.

I think G is also not innocent where click fraud is concerned but of course, they have stepped up on their efforts of late. Hopefuully, Yahoo can get over this crisis and revamp their program. But whatever it is, both G and YPN efforts should not be too punishing on publishers at the end of the day.

I'm sure Ben has some good advice for those willing to throw money away on PPCSE and CPM junk traffic...

"For the last 8 months, I've been following ads from Global-Store, Inqwire, Venus123, and various others -- all sites operated by Hula Direct. They're engaged in a troubling scheme: They buy popups and popunders from various notorious spyware vendors. They show numerous banner ads in "banner farms" without substantial bona fide content. They show advertisers' ads (and charge advertisers for those ad displays) without the advertisers' specific permission. They automatically reload ads to rack up extra fees."

Webmaster's... Mike and Charlie

"What have you done today to put real value into a referral click...from a shoppers viewpoint!"

I never really belived that many people clicked on ads on 'misspelled' domains.
Kind of goes against the (you need good content) theory.

I was just reading an article about how the ENTIRE country of Cameroon is making a fortune by camping the ".co" version of every site on the internet. They get huuuuge numbers of referrals due to people leaving out that final 'm.'

Benjamin Edelman said.... "In the examples I show above and previously, Yahoo's problem results from bad partners within its network. Yahoo syndicates ads to numerous partners, many of whom syndicate ads to others, some of whom then syndicate ads still further. The net effect is that Yahoo does not know who it's dealing with, and therefore cannot exercise meaningful supervision over how its ads are displayed. I consider this a bad idea -- bad business, bad for quality, bad for accountability. But Yahoo need not listen to me. Instead, consider instructions from New York Attorney General staff member Ken Dreifach: "Advertisers and marketers must be wary of fraud or deceptive practices committed by their affiliates, even [affiliates] that they have no working relationships with." (Quote from MediaPost, summarizing Dreifach's remarks.)...... "